


On a Winter Day

by Wind_Ryder



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brainwashing, Hurt/Comfort, Lies, Memory Loss, PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America: Winter Soldier Au: </p><p>Natasha Romanoff convinces the Winter Soldier to leave the Red Room with her when she escapes with Clint. As time passes he slowly starts remembering who and what he was. He works for SHEILD in order to repent. </p><p>Then, years later, Captain America is found in the ice and he’s called in to ease his old friend’s passage into the new millennium.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is Unbeta'd and is a series of short snippets involving the universe as described above. If you have any prompts for this universe, feel free to let me know and I'll fill them here.

“Steve?”

 

His head is swimming, numb and a bit frozen on the edges. It takes him a moment to even make out the sound of his name being called.

 

“Steve?”

 

He opens his eyes, but everything is too bright. It’s blurred and uncomfortable. He blinks slowly, forcing things to come into focus.

 

“Steve?”

 

There’s a face there, hovering just above him. He blinks again, and this time, when he looks up he can make out the features peering back down at him. For a moment, he’s not sure he can breathe. He’s looking into the face of a dead man. Light was cascading around that well loved and familiar face, and the whole experience was bizarrely surreal.

 

“Knew you’d go to heaven.”  He murmured quietly, feeling a smile tugging on his lips. The face hovering above him started laughing at that. It made his heart ache. He never thought he’d hear it again. They were together, now…as it always should be.

 

“Heaven? I’ve always been too active duty for that. Not even the nuns could knock me of that habit.” He frowned, blinking several more times until the light faded and he realized that there wasn’t an ethereal glow surrounding his closest friend’s head. Instead, there was just a bulb hanging loosely from the ceiling. It was…surprisingly more low-tech than he imagined Heaven to be.

 

“We’re…in…hell?” He tried, reaching a hand up to rub at his eyes.

 

“Christ Almighty you sure go one way or the other, don’t you?” His friend asked, shaking his head. “Steve…you ain’t dead.”

 

That sat him upright faster than his eyesight had returned. He reached a hand out and caught his friend by the front of his shirt. Solid fabric and body heart radiated under his fingers and Steve stared at the man in dumb shock. “But you’re dead.” He said stupidly. “Bucky…Bucky I _saw_ you fall.”

 

“And that was all you saw.” Bucky told him with a gentle tap on the arm. “I…made it through more or less.”

 

“More or less?” Steve asked, and Bucky smiled at him. He shook his head slowly.

 

“It’s…not important now. We can talk about it another time.” He replied. “Listen…there’s some things we need to go over first, and it isn’t going to easy to hear.”

 

“Did everyone make it out okay? Peggy and-”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, they made it out okay; bud. They all made it out.” Bucky soothed. His tongue shot out and licked his lips.

 

“Then…what is it?” Steve turned his head and glanced towards the windows. “Where are we?”

 

“New York. Manhattan actually.” Bucky laughed slightly, a nervous hitch in his breath as he shifted uncomfortably. “Steve, you’ve…you’ve been asleep for a while.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Seventy years, give or take a few.” Bucky replied bluntly.

 

For a moment, Steve just stared at him. “That’s not funny. It wasn’t even clever.” He replied, lips pulling down in a frown. Bucky didn’t smile back. Didn’t apologize. He didn’t even bother to look a bit shame faced. He just stared back, keeping his eyes on Steve.

 

“When you hit the ice, it was so cold outside your body froze almost instantly. The serum kept you alive, but in stasis. You…weren’t found until about a month ago. Steve, it’s 2010.”

 

“No. No you’re lying. That’s not funny.” He repeated, shaking his head. He swung his feet off the bed and stared at the room around them. It looked like any recovery room he’d seen in the past. Down to the radio.

 

“The room’s fake. They thought it was best if I broke it to you slowly…keep you from going into shock first.”

 

“If it’s 2010, why do you still look like that? Why aren’t you ninety?” Steve accused.

 

“I…When I fell…I…the cold – I…me too.” Bucky finished lamely. He licked his lips again, and one hand awkwardly reached towards his left arm. He rubbed it uncertainly for a moment before stumbling through the rest of his explanation. “Zola, when I was captured in Arzano…he’d been trying to recreate Erksine’s formula. It wasn’t as good as yours, sure, but apparently it was enough to keep me alive too. So…I mean, you had no way of knowing.”

 

“They found you first.” Steve guessed, looking at the different way his friend was holding himself. The hunch of his shoulders, the twist of his lips, hell even his language was different. He’d been in this new world longer than Steve, and apparently he was now the welcoming committee.

 

“They started looking in earnest once they realized…well…once they suspected.” Bucky was rubbing his arm again, and Steve held his breath.

 

“Are you…all right?” He asked again, suddenly not so sure of the answer. He couldn’t help think that something was seriously wrong. It was on the tip of his tongue, but when he looked at his age old friend…it didn't seem right. Bucky looked like he was nauseous, skin tinged slightly green around the edges.

 

“Me?” Bucky laughed. It sounded off, and his accompanying smile didn't quite reach his eyes. “Steve…I’ve had a while to get used to this. It’s _you_ I’m worried about. What do you think? Wanna look outside and see the future?” Bucky didn’t seem too keen on actually showing him the great outdoors, and for a moment Steve honestly thought that this was just some elaborate prank.

 

As soon as he stepped outside, Jim and Dum Dum were going to be there laughing hysterically as Colonel Phillips informed a Senator that _yes,_ Steve really was that gullible. Symbol of America right there. Steve reached out to touch Bucky one more time, and Bucky watched as his hand rested on his left arm.

 

“Come on, you’ll never believe what Time Square looks like.” Bucky told him, tugging his arm out of Steve’s grasp and leading him towards the door. “Ten bucks says you can’t take your eyes off it.”

 

“No deal.” Steve replied, but he followed Bucky anyway. He always did, but more importantly: he always would. Besides…he needed to figure out the truth about what was going on around here. For some reason, he doubted Bucky would be the one to tell him.

 

Bucky was right about one thing, though: New York certainly had changed. 


	2. Yasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha meets Clint for the first time, and makes a choice that changes the course of history.

Natasha learned early on how to gauge what people did and didn’t want to know. She tailored her answers specifically to appease them, and was never let down when they took it the way she intended. For every answer she gave regarding her past, she let them come up with their own conclusions.

 

Clint made a different call.

 

I started that young.

 

I was Russian.

 

I was a KGB assassin.

 

The choice was always theirs as to whether she should be believed or not. The truth, if that’s what they were really after, was rarely something they truly wanted to know. Natasha read that in the lines of their bodies, the twist of their lips, the frowns on their faces. They were uncanny with their displeasure, and they showed it viscerally. They tended to ignore the basic fundamental part of her psychological makeup. They talked over her opinions, and told her they weren’t valid.

 

“You were just a child, Natasha. You didn’t have a choice, and you didn’t know better.” She heard it so often, she wondered when she was allowed to make a choice on her own. She wondered when they’d just let her live the way she wanted to live, without their interference.

 

The truth was, Natasha first met Clint when she was eleven years old. He’d put an arrow through her back, and she’d fallen into a heap in the snow. As he approached, he realized that truth for what it was: he’d shot a child. Granted, she’d tried to stab him as soon as he got close, but the arrow sent an electric shock through her body. She was easily incapacitated.

 

“Oh God.” He whispered, crouching over her. He called it in. “I’ve incapacitated the Black Widow.” He said carefully, looking down at her. One of his hands hesitated over her body. She was gasping for breath, shivering violently as black spots danced in front of her vision. “I need to bring her in.”

 

“Negative.” The voice on the other line stated firmly. “She is to be neutralized.”

 

“Sir, she’s a kid.” There was a pause. “Christ, she’s _not even legal_.” He hissed. “I’m taking her in. I need a pick up.”

 

It might have been the blood loss, but Natasha made a choice then. It was just one choice, but looking back she knew that it changed everything.  “Can Yasha come too?” Her English had never been the best, but she knew enough words to communicate with her would be killer. He stared at her with a grim twist of his lips.

 

“Who’s Yasha?”  He asked her.

 

“My friend, and he’s dying.” She could never repay Clint for saying yes. She pushed herself to her feet, and he carefully supported her as they walked side by side. She was bleeding badly, and her head was spinning, but she didn’t think twice about trusting him with her well-being. She was going to die either way, and if she went with him, at least she might have a chance.

 

Clint attempted to keep her still, to stop her from moving too much, but she was resolute. She insisted that they needed to go to Yasha, and he eventually acquiesced. He gave another call telling base what was going on, and he ignored their orders to stay still. He must have considered it was going to be a trap. He was always in perfect striking distance of her, ready to take her down for good if she attempted anything.

 

She didn’t want to attempt anything. Only twenty-four hours earlier, she’d seen horrors that could never be erased from her mind, at her safe house, her partner was dying a horrible death, and she just wanted it to stop. Clint was the only chance she had, and so they practiced trusting each other, and it worked out for the best.

 

She was stumbling badly by the time they made it to the safe house, but she was determined. She showed him inside, and led him to the bedroom. Yasha had been just where she’d left him, curled in agony on the bed. He wasn’t breathing properly, his skin was burning off him from the inside, and his consciousness had left him.

 

Clint called for an emergency evacuation immediately. He pressed a hand to Yasha’s throat, and grimaced. “What the hell happened?” He asked her, and she told him.

 

“He needed to go into the submarine without a suit. No time. He came out like this.” She replied brokenly Clint turned to look back at her, questions on his face. He just pressed his lips together and cursed.

 

Later she’d know to call Yasha’s sickness radiation poisoning. Then, all she knew was that for once he wasn’t healing. For once he was truly ill, and there was nothing she could do. She knew returning to the Red Room would mean he’d be killed just as surely as his staying out of the Red Room would likely lead to his death. She took a gamble on the worse fate, and it seemed like she won.

 

She stood to the side, watching as Clint’s men carefully picked up her partner and carried him away. She followed after them, climbing into the vehicle and watching as they started writing down observations and connecting him to various machinery. “They’ll do what they can.” Clint told her. “As much as they can.”

 

It was only when she saw that they really were trying to save him that she let them see her back. The arrowhead was wrenched from her shoulder blade, and a quick fix was patched on to halt the bleeding. It hurt, but she was used to it. She was familiar with this kind of pain and she didn’t mind suffering a bit more if it meant that she could stay with Yasha as they leaned over him.

 

Yasha’s body healed faster under their care. As he slept, his skin stitched itself back together, forcing pus and sick out of his pores and replacing destroyed flesh with a sleek new layer. The doctors stared at him in shock, noting his progress with startled amazement. As the days slipped by, Natasha worried her thumb between her teeth, and prayed she hadn’t made a mistake. They were fascinated by him. 

 

They let her stay with him. She sat in a chair at his side, knees drawn to her chest as she watched over. His breaths were slow and sedate, assisted by an oxygen mask. He didn’t wake up. Not once. The doctors attached a bag of fluids to keep him hydrated, and she was grateful. If they hadn’t, he almost certainly would have died.

 

By the end of the second week, her back had healed rather nicely. Clint stayed with her through most of it, quietly asking her questions about the Red Room and her missions. She explained that she didn’t have a life prior to working for them, and that she’d already killed fourteen people.

 

“Fourteen?” He clarified, twisting his lips grimly. “We only knew about ten.”

 

“Fourteen.” She confirmed, and then went on to say exactly who, and how, and why.

 

“And your friend?” He asked, motioning towards Yasha.

 

“More than me.” She replied. “He trained me.”

 

“Is he going to be receptive to all of this when he wakes up?” Clint asked.

 

“I’ll talk to him.” She promised. He didn’t press her too much on that front. There wasn’t much they could do until they saw how he reacted.

 

By the start of the fourth week, Yasha’s body looked almost as good as new. He was slimmer than before, having lost much of his muscle due to lack of use. Someone came around and shaved his face and cut his hair so it was more manageable. Natasha even had her hair taken care of as well. It was the first time she’d had it cut, and she liked how it felt against the back of her neck. Yasha looked younger. Much younger. She played a game where she tried to guess how old he actually was. It turned out; he was only twenty-three.  

 

An old man came in to check in on them just after the hair cut. His eyes were sharp and focused, and he barely gave her a glance of recognition before he leaned over Yasha’s bedside and was analyzing his face. Natasha pushed herself between them, ready to fight if she had to. She didn’t trust him, and she wouldn’t let him any closer until he explained himself.

 

“Who are you?” She asked him, raising her hands in defense.

 

“Howard Stark.” The man replied. He looked down at her. “Do you know who he is?”

 

“Yasha.” She replied.

 

“No…no that’s not his name.”

 

“I named him.” She replied. “He’s my partner.”

 

“You named him.” Howard repeated, looking between them. He licked his lips. His brows were pinched tight together.

 

“Yes. He didn’t have a name, and so I named him.” Howard looked baffled at her declaration. He stared at her, mouth opening and closing for a long time. Eventually his gaze fell back onto Yasha’s face, imprinting it to memory.

 

“How is he so young?” He murmured quietly, almost to himself. She knew the answer to that, though.

 

“They froze him between missions.” Once more his incredulous expression reverted back to her. She slowly started to lower her hands; realizing that he wasn’t a threat. He was just a sad man receiving a shock. What concerned her the most was how he was convinced that he knew Yasha’s real name. It was a development she hadn’t even considered when she made the choice to leave.

 

“Froze him?”

 

“I saw…after they wipe him they freeze him in the tube.” She made a hand motion that was meant to show what the tube looked like. He followed her hands with his eyes, occasionally glancing back at her partner.

 

“What do you mean…wipe him?”

 

“In the chair. It makes the memories go away.” She replied carefully. She didn’t know how best to describe it. Only that it hurt, and that everyone in the Red Room was scared of being put in that chair as well. Yasha was the only one who didn’t resist. He walked towards it every time with his shoulders fallen and his head cast downwards. He knew what would happen to him, he always did. He just never had the willpower to disobey. They wiped that out first, it seemed.

 

“Did they do that to you?” Howard asked.

 

“Not as much.” She replied. It was true. She was expected to remember everything that was important. The same didn't apply to her partner. He had needed to be reintroduced each time they interacted. The more times they met, the easier the transition was, but it was still always an effort for him. It was always uncomfortable. 

 

Howard’s face turned red with fury, and he nodded. Carefully crouching so they were eye to eye, he held out his hand to her. “I promise you, you and your friend are safe. We’re not going to let anything happen to you. We won’t send either of you back.”

 

“You knew him…from before the Red Room?” She didn’t take his hand, but he didn’t pull it away. He left it out there, a peace offering that she had yet to truly deny.

 

“I did.” Howard confirmed.

 

“What’s his name?” She asked him. She wanted to know.

 

“James Buchanan Barnes.”

 

“American!” She cried out, eyes wide as she tried to process that. His English had always been better than most. There was rarely an accent, even if he didn’t seem to understand why that was.

 

“We called him ‘Bucky.’” He continued. “He’s a hero.”

 

“ _Yasha?_ ” She could believe that he was American, but calling him a hero seemed a bit much. He was a soldier, and one that fought against them from the first.

 

“Yes…he really was.” He motioned to his still outstretched hand, and she carefully shook it. “Look after him.” He asked of her, and she nodded as he left the room.

 

In the coming days she saw more of Howard. He came by frequently, looking over Yasha and checking his chart. He, like everyone else, seemed mystified by the fact that he was healing so quickly. She tried to explain that he’d always been like that, but that didn’t seem to help any. In fact, it only seemed to make them more confused.

 

Eventually, when Yasha’s body was almost entirely healed, he slowly began to wake up. She was there first, quickly running to his bedside and looking down at him. “You’re safe.” She told him immediately, pressing a hand to the crown of his head.

 

“Natalia?” He murmured, squinting up at her in confusion. “Where…”

 

“I did something you may not like.” She told him. “We’ve been…apprehended by SHIELD.”

 

He flew upright in a flash. His hand reached out and snatched the plugs from his arms and ripped the oxygen mask from his face. The door swung open and he immediately tumbled into a crouch, one hand outstretched to keep her back from the fight that was bound to happen.

 

“No! They saved you! They helped you!” Natasha cried, tugging on his arm until he dragged his eyes away from the SHIELD agents that looked ready to shoot him on sight. Clint appeared then, pushing passed the other agents so he could get to the front of all the chaos.

 

“Stand down!” He hissed, shoving at them as he kept a wary eye on Yasha. “All of you, that’s enough!”

 

“Please, please Yasha, stop!” Natasha was still trying to break through to her partner, but he wasn’t listening. If anything, he’d only gotten unbearably pale. He was trembling, eyes wide and hands raised in front of him. He was terrified, and his fear was projecting as mindless violence. He was going to cause more trouble than he was worth, and SHIELD wouldn’t take kindly to him killing any of their agents as they tried to talk him down.

 

“Look, no one’s going to hurt you.” Clint said firmly, meeting Yasha’s eye. “I promise. You’re safe here.”

 

“I do not understand.” Yasha murmured, trembling as he looked between them all in open confusion.

 

“That’s all right too. We’re just trying to understand everything as well. So why don’t we all just stand down for a minute and talk.”

 

Yasha’s eyes flickered between the agents’ guns and Natasha. Even as skilled as he was, he’d never manage to do anything before bullets tore through them. There were too many of them, and they stood too far away. He lowered his hands and dropped his head slightly in defeat.

 

Natasha let out a breath of relief and stepped closer. “It’s going to be okay.” She promised him, he didn’t respond. Then again, he never did whenever the odds were no longer in his favor.

 

Natasha had gotten very good at telling lies of omission. She told them all the time. She had no idea if everything was going to be okay then, but until it proved otherwise, she was willing to believe. She was willing to help him believe too. Lies were meant to ease the minds of those who believed them, and he needed more help then she’d care to think about. She was more than willing to lie if it soothed his hurt just a little.

 

Years later, when Natasha was introduced to Steve Rogers for the first time, she was willing to continue telling lies for Yasha. The good Captain asked her questions earnestly, desperate for answers. She told him what he needed to hear.

 

He’s fine.

 

He’s adjusted.

 

He’s been safe.

 

He was well taken care of.

 

He just needs time.

 

The thing about lies of omission is that they are all technically true. Steve Rogers was desperate to hear those truths, and so the deeper problem was never addressed. Natasha doubted it ever would be.

 

Too much had changed, and the only person who could help Yasha, was himself. And that was his greatest problem: he didn’t know who ‘himself’ was, and he steadfastly refused to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr: http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com


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